Bulk venders, colloquially known as “gum ball machines”, are widely used for dispensing confectioneries and other small articles of merchandise. A typical bulk vender has a hopper assembly comprising a transparent merchandise storage bin, seated over a dispensing wheel that revolves in a hopper. A plurality of product compartments are recessed into the dispensing wheel. A patron deposits the required token or coin into the coin mechanism and turns the handle, which rotates the dispensing wheel to move one of the product compartments over a dispensing chute, and thus conveys a preset amount of merchandise to the dispensing chute. The hopper assembly is located over a body which is mounted on a base, defining a secure compartment containing a cash box into which the coin mechanism ejects the deposited token or coin. Bulk venders of this type are well known to those skilled in the art.
Bulk vending machines tend to dispense merchandise in fairly accurate metered amounts as long as the merchandise is smooth-walled and has a relatively regular shape (e.g. is symmetrical about two or three orthogonal planes). Articles having these characteristics tend to fill the product compartments in the dispensing wheel fairly uniformly, because they drop easily into the product compartments and are self-packing so the overall product density remains substantially uniform throughout the product bin and in each product compartment. Bulk venders are therefore well suited for the unsupervised dispensing of articles such as gumballs and other hard, round or oval confectionary, because the user can virtually be guaranteed to receive the same preset amount of product with each revolution of the coin mechanism.
However, conventional bulk venders are relatively poorly suited for dispensing rough-surfaced articles and articles which have an irregular shape, such as toys and lollypops. These types of articles tend not to provide a uniform product density throughout the product bin and do not fall neatly into the product compartments, with the result that a different volume of merchandise (and sometimes no merchandise at all) may be dispensed with each rotation of the coin mechanism. This is unacceptable, because it introduces an element of risk into the purchase of product from a bulk vender, and consumers will not purchase merchandise from a bulk vender if there is any perceived risk that they will not receive the product that they are paying for.
Conventional bulk venders are also unsuitable for vending soft articles, because of the way a conventional bulk vender is configured. In order to ensure that the dispensing chute is not in direct communication with the product bin (which would result in product free-flowing through a product compartment to the user), the portion of the dispensing wheel situated over the dispensing chute is covered by a shroud. Rotation of the dispensing wheel pushes the next successive product compartment underneath the shroud, where it comes into communication with the dispensing chute and empties the product through the dispensing chute, as is well known. Soft articles (and some irregularly shaped articles) can become wedged between the trailing edge of the product compartment and the shroud, jamming the vender. This is also unacceptable, because the operators of such venders rely upon the continuous operation of the vender for revenue generation. Each time the vender jams, not only does the operator have to incur the cost of service personnel to repair the jam, but potential revenues during the interval between jamming and repair are lost.
As such, there are limited types and shapes of articles which can be dispensed from a conventional bulk vender without special packaging. In order to vend irregularly-shaped articles or soft articles, one or more articles must be placed into a symmetrical hard-shelled capsule. This significantly increases the cost of the product. In some cases the cost of capsule can exceed the cost of the product, making the sale by bulk vender impractical. Accordingly, bulk venders are not generally used to dispense such merchandise.
It would accordingly be advantageous to provide a bulk vender which is capable of dispensing irregularly-shaped and soft articles without requiring any special packaging. It would further be advantageous to provide such a vender which is entertaining to view in operation, to attract users and thus increase revenues to the vending machine operator.